Photo Credit: RockLove
What No Contact is and what it isn’t
No Contact (NC) is not a game or a ploy to get a person back into our lives; this technique has been misrepresented in many dating books and blogs. We should not desire to have people who have mistreated us back into our lives. On the contrary, No Contact is a way to remove this person’s toxic influence so we can live happier, healthier lives while cultivating our authentic self and minimizing people-pleasing. As shown by the image above, No Contact is the key that locks out that person from ever entering our heart, mind, and spirit in any palpable way again.
Why We Establish No Contact in the Context of Abusive Relationships
We establish No Contact for a number of reasons, including preserving a healthy mind and spirit after the ending of a toxic, unhealthy or abusive relationship or friendship. NC gives trauma bonds, bonds which are created during intense emotional experiences, time to heal from abusive relationships. If we remain in constant contact with the toxic person, we will only reinvigorate these trauma bonds and form new ones. No Contact also gives us time to grieve and heal from the ending of an unhealthy relationship or friendship without reentering it. Most of all, we establish No Contact so that toxic people like Narcissists and Sociopaths can’t use hoovering or post-breakup triangulation techniques to win us back over. By establishing No Contact, we essentially remove ourselves from being a source of supply in what is clearly a non-reciprocal, dysfunctional relationship.
How To Do No Contact Effectively
Full No Contact requires that we do not interact with this person in any manner or through any medium. This includes in-person and virtual contact. We must thus remove and block the person from all social media networks, because the toxic person is likely to attempt to trigger and provoke us through these mediums by posting updates on their lives post-breakup. We must also block them from messaging or calling us or contacting us via e-mail. Avoid the temptation to find out about the person’s life via a third party or other indirect way. Remove triggering photos, gifts and any other reminders from your physical environment and from your computer.
Always refuse any requests to meet up with this person and ignore any places the person frequents. Should the person stalk or harass you by other means and you feel comfortable taking legal action, please do so. Your safety comes first. If you are in a situation where you must remain in contact with an ex-partner for legal issues or because of children, keep in low contact (minimum communication) and use the Grey Rock method of communication if this person has narcissistic (NPD) or antisocial (ASPD) traits.
I also highly recommend cutting contact with the friends of the abusive ex-partner if possible as well by also removing them from your social media sites. I understand you may have established great friendships with these people during the course of your relationship but if you did date a narcissist or sociopath, he or she has likely staged a smear campaign against you and you will not get any validation or support from these people.
Unfortunately, the narcissistic harem or fan club is ultimately convinced by the illusion and false self of the charming manipulator. Think of your ex-partner’s “friends” (more like supply) as being kept in a perpetual idealization phase with no discard – they are not likely to believe your accounts of the abuse and may even be used by the narcissist or sociopath to hoover, triangulate, trigger or manipulate you in some way. It’s best to cut ties with them completely and create your own support network that is separate from the abuser.
Stick to No Contact
If NC is a struggle for you, there many ways to ensure that you stick to it. Make sure you have a weekly schedule filled with pleasurable, distracting activities, such as spending time with friends, going to a comedy show, getting a massage, taking long walks, and reading helpful books such as The No Contact Rule by Natalie Lue.
Take care of your physical and mental well-being by exercising daily, establishing a regular sleep schedule to keep your circadian rhythms in balance, doing yoga to help strengthen your body and relieve stress, as well as engaging in a daily meditation practice of your choice.
Use these meditations in order to be mindful of your cravings, which will be an inevitably part of the addiction cycle to this toxic relationship. Remember that we are literally “addicted” to the narcissist via biochemical bonds created by lovebombing, devaluation and trauma. If you have a relapse, the important thing is to radically accept (nonjudgmentally) your fall off the wagon and continue to maintain No Contact. Relapse is inevitable in addiction, but recovery is possible.
Studies show that mindfulness curbs our craving by disconnecting the regions of our brain that create that sense of craving. I offer a Healing Meditation for Emotional Abuse Survivors on my YouTube channel, and Meditation Oasis is also an excellent resource for guided meditations. You may also experiment with alternative healing methods such as Reiki, acupuncture, or aromatherapy.
Do yourself a favor and look up online forums that relate to unhealthy and toxic relationships; joining such a forum ensures that you have a community and support network that enables you to remain NC and support others who are struggling just like you. It will also help validate some of the experiences that you went through during the friendship or relationship with people who’ve been there.
Do not resist your grief during this process, because you will have to face it at some point. The more you resist negative thoughts and emotions, the more they’ll persist – it’s a fact. Learn how to accept your emotions and accept the grieving process as an inevitable part of the healing journey. I recommend trying the grieving exercises and abiding by the No Contact rules in the book Getting Past Your Breakup, written by certified grief counselor Susan Elliot.
Most of all, develop a healthier relationship with your cravings to break NC by practicing radical acceptance and mindfulness to the present moment. Remember that relapse may be an inevitable part of the addiction cycle and forgive yourself if you do break NC at any point. After practicing this self-compassion and forgiveness, you must get back on the wagon after falling off of it. Track your urges to break NC in a journal to curb acting upon the urges. Make sure that before you act on any urge, you give yourself at least an hour to collect yourself. It will get easier once you realize that breaking NC often bears no rewards, only painful learning experiences.
See my list of 30 Kickass Affirmations for Going No Contact with an Abusive Narcissist.
See my videos for more Tips on Maintaining No Contact and No Contact: Healing From Narcissistic Abuse.
Why We Remain No Contact
The ending of an unhealthy relationship often leaves us reeling and feeling unable to cope. Even though we logically know we did not deserve the abuse or mistreatment, we may be tempted to stray from this when our emotions get a hold of us. Trauma bonds often keep us tethered to the abuser, as well as other factors such as codependency, low self-esteem, feelings of low worth, which may have been instilled in us from the abusive patterns within the relationship or may have kept us in the relationship in the first place.
No Contact is a space for healing and reviving yourself, apart from the belittling influences of your former partner or friend. It is an opportunity for you to detach completely from the toxic person while moving forward with your life and effectively pursuing your goals. It enables you to look at the relationship honestly and productively from the realm of your own intuition, perceptions, emotions and thoughts, apart from the gaslighting or abuse of the former partner.
Remember that anyone who has treated you with anything less than respect does not deserve to be in your life, so NC helps you to resist the temptation to invite them back into your life in any manner or form. Many survivors find it helpful to track their progress on a calendar, blog or journal. You should celebrate and take note of your NC progress, as it is both a challenging and rewarding path to self-empowerment.
By establishing No Contact, you are ultimately staging your own victory and exploring your strengths, talents and new freedom with more ease. I invite you take the first steps to recovery and success by challenging yourself to at least 30 days of NC if you are doing it for the first time. This will provide a detoxifying period where you can start to heal in a protective space of self-care and self-love, enabling your mind and body to repair itself from the abuse. Then, utilize the resources I’ve mentioned here in order to maintain NC and purge your life of the toxic influences you were once tethered to.
Happy healing!
Since writing this post in 2014, I’ve started a new monthly online coaching program for survivors and have a new book available for pre-order.
Interested in learning more about narcissistic abuse? Order my new book on narcissistic abuse, Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself.
Copyright © 2015 by Shahida Arabi.
All rights reserved, including translation rights. No part of this entry, which is an excerpt from the copyrighted book, The Smart Girl’s Guide to Self-Care, may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.
IF YOU ENJOYED THIS, BE SURE TO ALSO READ: 30 KICKASS AFFIRMATIONS FOR GOING NO CONTACT WITH AN ABUSIVE NARCISSIST
Keeping tabs on an emotionally abusive ex-partner is like mourning the loss of trash after it has already been taken out. Go #NoContact!
— Shahida A. (@selfcarehaven) May 8, 2014
The ideas in this blog entry have been adapted from a chapter of this book and are copyrighted by law.
Self-Care Haven: Home of The Smart Girl’s Guide to Self Care by Shahida Arabi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. In other words, you must ask permission if you intend to share this blog entry somewhere, and always provide proper credit in the form of a link back to this blog as well as my name.
No contact is great. It saves you a ton of pain. =( My block list is three pages long due to this ex and his friends.
This is not really a comment but a question. I am very new to this. My husband of 37 years just began moving out 2 months ago (he’s been dragging it out taking a few things at a time). I have gone no contact but there are things I don’t know how to handle. We are still married and after 37 years you can imagine how entangled our finances and belongings are. I need to contact him to get some things that we own jointly but he is in possession of. I don’t want to contact him directly but is there a service that will contact him on my behalf?